Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/315

Rh, would have been shocked by the faults and the divergences of these almost superhuman athletes.

"Passing between the files of anvils, one of the hammerers especially interested me; a hoary, strapping fellow with a gentle and wistful face, at the most thirty years of age. The director had shown me, in his rooms, admirable pieces of wrought iron, recalling, or rather perpetuating the exquisite ironwork of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

"Here," he said to me, "is the maker of those pieces!" and to the hammerman who did not stop puddling the flaming iron: "Karel, this gentleman has been good enough to find some merit in your slight work." "Not some merit, but the greatest merit," I hurriedly corrected. "Those window-grilles, that fire-gate, the candelabra, the banister are superb, and I heartily congratulate you upon them!" At my convinced tone, and the explicit expression of my praise, his serious face lit up with a pale smile, his tempestuous eyes radiated; he thanked me in a gentle and moved voice; but smile, intonation and look were so poignant that, had I persisted, and touched the same chord, his expression of gratitude would have become a burst of tears. I, too, felt myself as much overwrought as he, and after having furtively touched his callous hands, I moved away quickly, a lump in my throat and a mist before my eyes.

"'And to think,' the director said to me, when we had left the room and I had turned away to hide my emotion, 'that I have placed that hardhitter very nicely with the village farrier. He earned a good salary, and his employer treated him well. Moreover, I had been able to recommend him very highly. He had undergone infinite affliction; the death of his family, carried